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Friends of Animals to Intervene in Alaska's Shooting of Wolves

October 22, 2004 | Wolves

Once autumn snowfalls permit the tracking of wolves, Alaska will begin its second aerial wolf-shooting program, intending to kill more than 500 wolves this winter.

147 wolves died in the winter of 2004 under Alaska's aerial wolf control scheme -- all to appease thrill-seeking hunter-pilot teams and moose hunters who boost their hunting opportunities by shooting the competition.

Last year—on November 4, 2003 -- the Alaska Board of Game and Department of Fish and Game re-instituted aircraft-assisted killing as a method of suppressing wolf populations at artificially low levels. There had been no such state-sponsored shotgunning of wolves from low, slow-flying aircraft, or by land-and-shoot killing, since the late 1980's. Alaskans voted by wide margins in 1996 and 2000 to end same-day uses of airplanes for public wolf hunting and trapping.

This year more than 200,000 people have joined Friends of Animals and organizers in 28 states, the District of Columbia, Germany, Japan and Great Britain to hold Howl-Ins in protest of Alaska's disgraceful conduct. Participants and supporters have signed postcards pledging to boycott Alaska's $2 billion-a-year tourism industry until the aerial wolf-shooting scheme is cancelled.

Persistence will be the key to ending aerial predator control programs.

So from November 6, 2004 - April 30, 2005, Friends of Animals will launch our second wave of Howl-In protests, this time to impact the summer 2005 tourism season. We continue to challenge the legality of Alaska's wolf-killing program in the Superior Court in Anchorage.

To spread the word, Friends of Animals advertisements will soon appear in The New York Times Sunday Magazine, Mother Jones Magazine, and other publications. We also have a compelling, 60-second TV spot that can be viewed via our website, www.friendsofanimals.org, and that will attract public attention to Howl-Ins.

We ask for your support of FoA’s interventions and Howl-Ins for wolves in Alaska. To hold a Howl-In, send an e-mail to: howlin@friendsofanimals.org, or call our Connecticut headquarters: 203-656-1522.

Please also write Gov. Murkowski and tell him you’ll boycott travel to Alaska until his wolf control campaign ends.

Kindly support a tourism boycott of Alaska to put economic pressure on the people responsible for establishing the killing policy: the Murkowski administration. Your financial contributions to FoA strengthen our efforts to empower Alaska’s wolves.